The Complete Works. William Butler Yeats

THE WANDERINGS OF OISIN

       NOTES

       THE WIND AMONG THE REEDS.

       EARLY POEMS

THE WIND AMONG THE REEDS

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THE HOSTING OF THE SIDHE

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      The host is riding from Knocknarea

      And over the grave of Clooth-na-bare;

      Caolte tossing his burning hair

      And Niamh calling Away, come away:

      Empty your heart of its mortal dream.

      The winds awaken, the leaves whirl round,

      Our cheeks are pale, our hair is unbound,

      Our breasts are heaving, our eyes are a-gleam,

      Our arms are waving, our lips are apart;

      And if any gaze on our rushing band,

      We come between him and the deed of his hand,

      We come between him and the hope of his heart.

      The host is rushing ’twixt night and day,

      And where is there hope or deed as fair?

      Caolte tossing his burning hair,

      And Niamh calling Away, come away.

THE EVERLASTING VOICES

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      O sweet everlasting Voices, be still;

      Go to the guards of the heavenly fold

      And bid them wander obeying your will

      Flame under flame, till Time be no more;

      Have you not heard that our hearts are old,

      That you call in birds, in wind on the hill,

      In shaken boughs, in tide on the shore?

      O sweet everlasting Voices, be still.

THE MOODS

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      Time drops in decay,

      Like a candle burnt out,

      And the mountains and woods

      Have their day, have their day;

      What one in the rout

      Of the fire-born moods

      Has fallen away?

THE LOVER TELLS OF THE ROSE IN HIS HEART

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      All things uncomely and broken, all things worn out and old,

      The cry of a child by the roadway, the creak of a lumbering cart,

      The heavy steps of the ploughman, splashing the wintry mould,

      Are wronging your image that blossoms a rose in the deeps of my heart.

      The wrong of unshapely things is a wrong too great to be told;

      I hunger to build them anew and sit on a green knoll apart,

      With the earth and the sky and the water, remade, like a casket of gold

      For my dreams of your image that blossoms a rose in the deeps of my heart.

THE HOST OF THE AIR

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      O’Driscoll drove with a song

      The wild duck and the drake

      From the tall and the tufted reeds

      Of the drear Hart Lake.

      And he saw how the reeds grew dark

      At the coming of night tide,

      And dreamed of the long dim hair

      Of Bridget his bride.

      He heard while he sang and dreamed

      A piper piping away,

      And never was piping so sad,

      And never was piping so gay.

      And he saw young men and young girls

      Who danced on a level place

      And Bridget his bride among them,

      With a sad and a gay face.

      The dancers crowded about him,

      And many a sweet thing said,

      And a young man brought him red wine

      And a young girl white bread.

      But Bridget drew him by the sleeve,

      Away from the merry bands,

      To old men playing at cards

      With a twinkling of ancient hands.

      The bread and the wine had a doom,

      For these were the host of the air;

      He sat and played in a dream

      Of her long dim hair.

      He played with the merry old men

      And thought not of evil chance,

      Until one bore Bridget his bride

      Away from the merry dance.

      He bore her away in his arms,

      The handsomest young man there,

      And his neck and his breast and his arms

      Were drowned in her long dim hair.

      O’Driscoll scattered the cards

      And out of his dream awoke:

      Old men and young men and young girls

      Were gone like a drifting smoke;

      But he heard high up in the air

      A piper piping away,

      And never was piping so sad,

      And never was piping so gay.

THE FISHERMAN

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      Although